


This Flying Lark.

by Jackmerlin



Category: The Marlows - Antonia Forest
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 04:41:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11616081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackmerlin/pseuds/Jackmerlin
Summary: Prompt:Jon appears only in one scene in canon, but it's an unforgettable portrait, and his legacy hangs over all the books from Falconer's Lure on. I'd love see your take on his past: growing up at Trennels, chasing his father's hawks all over the county, in the RAF before and during the war, sailing Surfrider, his friendship with Patrick.I have counted back from the Falconer's Lure timeline, so this is mainly set in 1920 (or thereabouts). The opening and closing paragraph are set a year or two after the series closes in the Marlow timeline.





	This Flying Lark.

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [antonia_forest_fanworks_2017](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/antonia_forest_fanworks_2017) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
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>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Jon appears only in one scene in canon, but it's an unforgettable portrait, and his legacy hangs over all the books from Falconer's Lure on. I'd love see your take on his past: growing up at Trennels, chasing his father's hawks all over the county, in the RAF before and during the war, sailing Surfrider, his friendship with Patrick.
> 
> I have counted back from the Falconer's Lure timeline, so this is mainly set in 1920 (or thereabouts). The opening and closing paragraph are set a year or two after the series closes in the Marlow timeline.

“You’ll need to talk to him yourself, of course.” Rowan’s brisk tone made it a statement, not a suggestion. The whole conversation in the estate office had been business-like.  
“This _is_ what you really want?” Geoff asked his daughter. It was possible that having taken on the farm to save two members of the family from leaving their chosen career, she might be just as likely to relinquish it in order to save another one from ending up in the wrong career.  
“Yes, it is. But that’s not really the point. We’ve cleared a lot of Jon’s debt and we’re starting to make a profit. The farm will support a proper farm manager’s salary. I could - and would - leave, even if Peter didn’t _want_ to do it.”  
He bit back the question he’d nearly asked, as to whether Peter would be capable of taking over. Not only would it be breaking the rule of not discussing one family member with another, but Rowan might justifiably snap that no-one had questioned whether _she_ could do it, when she had been Peter's age, and had had far less help and preparation than he would be getting. But then of course, she was Rowan and he had taken it for granted that she _would_ be able to do it.  
“You’ll find him in the Shippen,” said Rowan.

 

The door at the top of the wooden steps was ajar. He tapped on it, and it swung further open. No sign of Peter. He paused in the doorway, wondering whether to wait; his eyes drawn to a great, white bird, hanging slightly crooked from the rafter, half turning in the draught from the open door, as if a memory of flight stirred those dusty feathers and glass eyes….  
_Tarquin._ Funny that the name should have lodged in a corner of his memory. He hadn’t thought about this bird - or any of the others whose names he had once known - for years, decades even. But this stuffed relic recalled an afternoon spent chasing the damned thing halfway across Dorset - and Jon - Jon with his precious merlin, at the end of his summer holiday, boyish, sunlit, younger then than Geoff’s own two youngest were now, but with the same open- hearted enthusiasm for his hobbies as his daughter Nicola now showed.  
He hadn’t thought much about young Jon either, superseded as he had been by the polished, debonair man he had become in later years. Not that Geoff had known him well as an adult. Geoff’s own spare time and attention had always been taken up, with Pam first of all, and then the babies. Sometimes when he’d had a long leave in the summer months they’d come down with the children to Trennels, and they might have briefly overlapped with Jon, home on leave from the RAF. He’d been bursting with enthusiasm then too, full of hair-raising stories about the planes that were being developed and tested, later to become household names when the war started. He’d met up with Jon only a couple of times during the war - a short leave had coincided with Lawrence’s funeral - and thought he’d found Jon changed; more reserved, wary, with something of an artificial veneer of cheeriness about him. But who hadn’t changed one way or another during the war? He hadn’t been close enough to Jon to know any of the intimacies of his life, to know if he’d lost someone who’d really mattered. And with his own brood of children evidence of a vigorous and conventionally functional marriage, he’d never supposed that he would be the sort of person that Jon could confide in about his loves - lost or secret or simply failed.  
But he’d hoped that with the war over, and Trennels restored, that Jon might settle down at last and take farming seriously. A deluded thought, he realised now. That the mere land should hold the interest of a boy who’d always had his eyes fixed on the sky.

*******

Geoff was ruefully amused to realise that his first day of leave had been reduced to an afternoon spent with his younger cousin. When discussed with his fellow sub-lieutenants on a sloping deck somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, it had seemed full of infinite possibility. He had a standing invitation to spend a few days with friends in London, with all the potential for wine, women and song that that entailed; but as always he had felt the inevitable pull of Trennels, and country had won over town. Trennels had become the default focus of his boyhood homesickness, after he’d lost a home of his own; now, its gentle, green slopes and rolling pasture offered an earthy balm after months of heaving, grey seas.  
He had spent the morning traditionally enough; a lie-in and a late breakfast - late by the standards of Trennels, that is - his friends in London would have been horrified to be up so early - and then a walk with Lawrence around the nearer fields. He had been shown the improvements to the drainage in the lower pastures, admired the pedigree bull’s first crop of yearling bullocks and having shaken hands with the new farm manager, a chap named Tranter, listened politely if uncomprehendingly as he expounded his scheme for rotating the crops in a new way.  
But now Lawrence had to spend the afternoon in the office with his accountant, and he had commended Geoff to the company of his cousin Jon for the afternoon. Not that Geoff minded really, however lowering for his dignity it might seem to be entertained by a twelve year old boy. (‘Nearly thirteen’ Jon fiercely insisted.) Almost ten years separated them in age, which meant they had never been close, but they were easy companions when thrown together. Geoff, who had never had siblings, thought of Jon as something of a little brother.  
Their first slight awkwardness with each other, after the long absences of being at sea and school , wore off as they made their way to the stableyard. It looked as though he was in for an afternoon on horseback, thought Geoff, resigned if not enthusiastic.  
“Could you take a hawk on your fist?” Jon suggested. “Because then we could take them both, and not have to come back.”  
“I’m not sure Lawrence would think that was a good idea.”  
“No, that’s true. They never take to you much.” Jon smiled, disarmingly, to show no offence was meant, and Geoff grinned back, to show none taken.  
Geoff, nimble in a boat, was clumsy around horses, and pleading the need for a last smoke, he leant against the yard gate enjoying his cigarette while Jon tacked up the horses. Geoff was assigned Lawrence’s old hack, a placid beast who stood peaceably inside the open stable door, as obviously unenthusiastic about the afternoon’s work as Geoff felt. Jon’s pony, younger and more impatient, skittered and stamped as Jon bridled and saddled him.  
“Is he new?” asked Geoff. He didn’t take much interest in horses, but he had a vague memory of a rather ugly piebald animal, whereas this pony was the colour of autumn leaves.  
“Yes, isn’t he super,” Jon replied, happily. “The Welds bought him for Helena, but she couldn’t ride one side of him. Father was talking to them at the Hunt Ball. He suggested we swapped, what with Gypsy starting to be a bit small for me anyway..” He smoothed the pony’s mane over to the right side. “I’ll be able to take him hunting in the Christmas hols.”  
Smoke finished, Geoff strolled over to be introduced. He let the pony’s inquisitive nose brush over his flattened palm. “Firefly, this is my cousin Geoff,” said Jon. “He’s not very keen on horses so you have to be on your best behaviour.”  
“Guilty as charged,” said Geoff easily. “Bloomin’ uncomfortable when you’re on board, and even more uncomfortable coming off.”  
“So what are boats? Uncomfortable and wet and slow? And even wetter if you go overboard.” replied Jon.  
“I thought you liked sailing?”  
Jon shrugged. “It’s alright I suppose. I wish Father would get one of those proper racing dinghies though. We saw some being sailed in Mulcross Bay and they were almost flying!”  
“Alright for fair weather sailors, I imagine,” said Geoff with a proper level of Naval disapproval for such flighty vessels.  
Jon closed Firefly’s door, and they left the horses waiting while they walked round to the hawk-house, a long, low building at the side of the front lawn. Two hawks sat sunning themselves. Geoff exclaimed at the difference in size between the two; at the huge, white falcon tethered safely out of reach of the tiny, glossy brown one on the other perch.  
“We’ll take Tarquin later,” said Jon. “I’ll just move him into the shade while we’re gone. He was fed quite late yesterday.”  
Jon led the way into the hawk-house, to fetch glove and hawking bag. In an old chicken coop on the floor were two pheasants. ”What are these for?” asked Geoff.  
“They’re for Tarquin,” Jon explained, taking a handful of grain from a sack on the bench and tossing it into the coop. “To enter him. Father wants to take him to Scotland, to fly him at grouse, so we’ve got to get him waiting on. We gave him a bagged pheasant yesterday, but he missed completely and that one got away.”  
Geoff felt a fleeting pang of sympathy for the foolish, handsome birds in the pen, unaware of their impending fate. “We’re not doing that today, are we?”  
“No, Father said to leave that to him. We’ll just exercise him to the lure today.”  
Jon hung the hawking bag across his body, and pulled on his glove. “We’ll take Arabella first.”  
The diminutive falcon jumped neatly onto Jon’s fist for a titbit. He untied her and fiddled with her jesses, talking to her in soft, affectionate terms. He looked, thought Geoff, like a boy with his first sweetheart. Turning and catching Geoff’s eye on him, he flushed a little.  
“Is she yours?” asked Geoff.  
There was no mistaking the pride in Jon’s voice as he said yes.”I’m lucky to have her,” he explained as he carried the merlin back round to the stables. “Father wrote off for a male, just for me to have something of my own. The jacks aren’t much use really, unless you fly them in a cast with a female, so you can get them for nothing if you ask. But then the man wrote back saying he had a female, and the person he had it for had changed their mind so did we want it?”  
“Which of course you did?”  
“ _Rather!_ ”  
As Jon was now one-handed, Geoff led his pony out of the stable for him; then once Jon had mounted - surprisingly easily despite the hawk on his fist, he swung up onto his own mount. He’d half forgotten the feel of saddle and stirrups, and fumbled for a moment with girths and reins.  
Jon whistled sharply, and Lawrence’s old pointer, dozing in the tackroom, emerged and fell into line. As they hacked along the long lane to the downs, Geoff found muscle memory returning, and the movement of the animal beneath him became more familiar. As they rode, Jon regaled him with long tales of the many spectacular flights that Arabella had had at larks. “I don’t know if I’ll ever have another hawk as good,” he ended, sadly.  
Geoff was startled. “You’ll have her for years more, won’t you? How long do they live?”  
“No, I have to let her fly before I go back to school. We can’t keep her over the winter, even if I could take her to school. I was thinking if she gets a good kill this afternoon, I might let her go today. The weather’s pretty decent for her first night out.”  
There wasn’t much that Geoff could say. He thought of all the time that Jon must have spent with this little bird. He knew how much fierce devotion Jon expended on his pets, and how time consuming hawks were. Just to watch it fly away without a backward glance.  
Arabella rode unhooded on Jon’s fist, observing all that passed with bright, lustrous eyes. She roused as they came out onto the open downland, violently shivering all her feathers into fluffy disarray, before shaking them down again to her satisfaction.  
“That’s once,” said Jon. “She’s not ready to fly until she’s roused twice.” He looked fondly down at her. “I’m glad it worked out this way. Though if I’d got the jack I was going to call it Mick. Mick Mannock, you know.”  
He glanced at Geoff hopefully, and Geoff didn’t disappoint. “The flying ace.”  
The dead flying ace, like most of the others Jon had enthused about to Geoff on previous visits. All of Jon’s heroes were dead, reflected Geoff. They’d been heroes in the War of course, but even in peacetime he couldn’t imagine many pilots living into old age.  
However colossal a mistake one made in a boat, there was a chance something would remain floating, some wreckage to cling on to. The sea might forgive a mistake; the sky never could. He’d once countered an enthusiastic spiel from Jon with an assertion that nothing would induce _him_ to go up in the air in one of those things, only for Jon to explain at great length just how safe and reliable planes were, and how soon _everyone_ would be going _everywhere_ in them.  
Arabella roused again, and both she and Jon started looking about with the same intent expression. The dog who had been idly walking beside them, broke into an excited run, but halted at Jon’s shout. Obedient, he ranged across the ground in front of them. Watching the dog eagerly questing through the thick grass, Geoff asked, “What do you want him to find?”  
“He can point larks,” Jon explained. “They smell quite gamey. You’re not supposed to let them unless you want to ruin the dog for proper game, but old Bertie’s pretty much retired now, so Father doesn’t mind.”  
The action started with very little warning. Jon had halted his pony, and smoothly removed Arabella’s jesses, when the dog stiffened into a half-crouch a few metres before them. The falcon bobbed her head, once, twice, then the lark burst from the grass and the falcon was gone too in a blur of wings. The two birds seemed almost to converge, then the lark had gained and was ringing up into the blue of the sky. They went up and up, until they were almost dots to the naked eye; then Geoff heard the most extraordinary sound.  
“Is it singing?” he asked. Pouring from high above them, was the unmistakable trill and ripple of larksong.  
Jon grinned. “Yes. It’s a good one.”  
“But how has it got time to sing when it’s being chased like that?” asked Geoff, astonished.  
“Showing off - ‘You can’t catch _me_.’”  
Geoff blinked, realised he had lost sight of both birds, and looked again. The merlin flew suddenly past them, from a direction he hadn’t been expecting. Jon had dismounted, and was pulling the lure out of his bag. “She lost it.” He threw out the lure and the merlin fluttered down onto it. She was panting hard.  
Geoff stayed well back, memories of Lawrence’s reprimands at getting too close ringing in his ears. But Arabella let Jon pick her up willingly enough. “That was a hell of a flight!” Jon told her approvingly, as she picked at the titbit he gave her.  
After a few moments in which Arabella recovered herself, Jon remounted and they moved slowly forward again, letting the horses walk idly on long reins.

The second lark wasn’t so strong, or so lucky. Arabella gaining height above it, stooped, struck and they tumbled to the ground together.  
Geoff, expecting Jon to make in towards them, looked at him and saw his face briefly irresolute. Then with a slight stiffening of his shoulders he seemed to make up his mind, and deliberately pulled the glove off his fist and put it away in the bag.  
“We’ll leave her here,” he said.  
“Now?”  
Jon nodded. “She’s killed so she’ll be fed up. And she’s got ages before night time to find a place to roost.”  
They moved the horses away, and turned for a last look. The falcon, seeming quite tiny now, was looking up and around. Her head seemed to duck, then gripping her prey in her feet, she took off. For one insane moment Geoff thought she might fly towards them, but she veered round and flew low and fast towards a pile of stones, the remains of a tumbledown wall, where she alighted. They watched as she shifted her prey from foot to foot, turning her head to look all round her, before finally dropping her head to pluck her lark.  
“She’s alright. Let’s go.” Jon turned his pony and trotted away, calling to the dog. They were on rising ground and the turf was short and springy; without warning Jon kicked his pony into a gallop. Geoff followed more slowly; partly because his mount showed no inclination to go at more than a comfortable canter; and partly because the wind of their going might bring tears to the eyes. Much better to take his time catching up, and affect not to notice the quickly raised hand, rubbing away the tell-tale streaks.  
After the short burst of speed, they dropped back to a trot and then a walk. “We’d better let poor Bertie catch up,” said Jon, in quite a cheerful voice. He patted Firefly’s neck with the hand that was now spare.  
They rode on. Geoff was idly thinking of this and that, when Jon broke the silence that had fallen. “I wonder what it’s _really_ like to fly.”  
Geoff, who didn’t go in much for flights of imagination, simply shrugged.  
“ _I_ think it would be like being free.”  
“Free of what?” asked Geoff, with a touch of scepticism, thinking that Jon’s life was surely carefree enough for anyone.  
“Of everything. Rules. Feelings. You know.”  
Geoff didn’t think he did. Rules were usually there for a reason, after all. And sometimes one just had to get over things.  
“It must be good to be a lark,” said Jon.  
“As long as you’re not caught by a merlin?”  
“I’d like to be one. The way they sing when they’re up high - I mean, I know they’re guarding their territory and all that, but it makes it seem like it must be the best thing to be up there. Looking down on the whole world.”  
“Even with death coming up behind you?” asked Geoff, thinking of the falcon.  
“Even then. It must be worth it. Do you think the fliers in the War thought that?”  
“I have no idea,” he said firmly, and seeing no need to encourage this line of conversation any further, asked what they were going to do with Tarquin.

Tarquin was going to be flown to the lure. They would take him back up to the downs, said Jon, so he had plenty of space to mount up high, before stooping to the lure. And as they were on the horses anyway, they might as well ride them back up there. Bertie could stay behind though, as they weren’t going to be hawking.  
Geoff’s horse, Lundy, was clearly dismayed to be remounted and ridden away from home again, having thought he was done for the day. Firefly however, pricked his ears and stepped keenly towards the downs. Tarquin, hooded on Jon’s fist, looked enormous, tall enough that his head was on a level with Jon’s. Geoff could see that Jon’s whole back was braced to support his arm in the carrying position.  
“Is he heavy?” he asked.  
“Rather!” Jon answered, sounding proud.  
They stopped at an open patch of downland at the top of a rise. They dismounted and Geoff held the horses while Jon removed the gyrkin’s hood. The great, white bird stared about with dark, haughty eyes. They stood silent for a few moments while Tarquin roused, then Jon raised his arm slightly and the tiercel flew. He flew fast and low to the ground, seemingly heading away from them with increasing speed, then Jon gave the lure that hung by his side the slightest of twitches. Obediently the hawk turned and circled back over their heads and carried on mounting up in ever increasing circles. Jon, head thrown back, eyes to the sky, watched in rapt fascination. Even Geoff, whose admiration for hawks and falconry in general had always been somewhat muted, was impressed. There was something about being connected to this master of the sky that could stir even him . . . .  
The pigeon came hard and fast out of nowhere, beating its way in a straight line across the sky. The tiercel stooped, missed, and then set off in hot pursuit.  
Jon let out a stream of expletives that would have done one of Geoff’s ratings proud; he ran back to the horses, stuffing the lure back in his bag. He did a gymkhana style vault onto Firefly’s back and then they were galloping.  
At first Geoff could see the arrowy shape of the tiercel growing smaller in the distance ahead of them; but then he had to concentrate too hard on his riding to be able to look at the sky. They were galloping thunderously over rough ground; tussocks and hollows and piles of stones flashed into view and he had to watch every step ahead to keep his own balance, and he wasn’t fit for this sort of riding . . .  He hoped Jon knew where they were going.  
For a long way he was only aware of his arms and legs aching, and his breath short in his chest . . .  they were going downhill now, and he could see a stone wall ahead, the start of cultivated land. The first gate was open, thank goodness, and they cantered through. The wheat had been harvested, so they galloped on across the stubble. The next gate was shut; Jon gathered his pony, and show-jumped the five-barred gate. Geoff chose a lower stretch of the wall, frantically hoped that he remembered how to jump, and kicked with more confidence than he felt. Lundy, having got his second wind and thinking it was hunting, pricked his ears and flew safely over the wall. Geoff landed in more or less the same place as his horse, and was privately congratulating himself on still having all his stirrups and reins, when he saw that Jon was pulling up. His head was turned, and as Geoff persuaded the now-pulling Lundy to stop, he heard what Jon had heard the first time; a shrill whistle from across the field.  
Geoff looked and saw another rider at the far edge of the field; a figure on a handsome bay horse, who was waving and pointing.  
“It’s Anthony,” said Jon, and as they trotted over, Geoff saw a teenage boy that he recognised vaguely from parties.  
“I’ve just seen one of your hawks go over, Jon,” he called as soon as they were close enough to hear. “The big, white one. I think it’s gone down by the church.” He grinned in a friendly way at both of them. “Hope you get it!” he said, as Jon thanked him, and they rode on in the direction he’d indicated.  
The church was hidden behind trees, but they could see from a distance an agitated flock of rooks, flapping and cawing in a tight, buzzy cloud above the church roof, looking like wasps whose nest has been disturbed. “He must be in there somewhere,” said Jon.  
They rode down the grassy lane towards the church at a more decorous pace.  
“That looked like a racing pigeon,” Jon said. “The way it was going! I hope Tarquin didn’t catch it.” He was looking uncharacteristically worried. “Father will kill me if I lose him.”  
“The pigeon was hardly your fault,” observed Geoff.  
An expression like that of a guilty dog crossed Jon’s face. “I’m not really supposed to have Tarquin out by myself.”  
“So why have you?”  
“Well, I thought, strictly speaking, I’m not actually _by_ myself…”  
Geoff made an expression somewhere between a bark and a growl. But before he could say anything worse, Jon held a hand up, shushing him. They could see the churchyard beyond the gate, and down among the gravestones, something huge and white with spread wings.  
Quietly Jon slipped down from the saddle, threw his pony’s reins at Geoff, and went through the lych gate.  
The gyrkin was on the grass, fiercely mantling over what seemed to be a bundle of black feathers. It looked like the angel of death, thought Geoff, in that setting; silver-white, shining, crouched over the dead rook, with the old headstones leaning crookedly behind it.  
Jon, bent low and moving smoothly, had reached the tiercel and folded to his knees. He reached out his gloved fist with a tasty offering clutched in it; the tiercel glared, gripping its own kill convulsively. Geoff realised he was holding his breath, but as he watched, the tiercel’s head bobbed, and with one awkward step, he was on the glove. He wobbled, still trying to clutch the rook in his foot while trying to snatch at the titbit in the glove. Then Jon’s other hand had snaked across, he had the end of the flying jesses, he had got him.  
After a moment in which Jon sorted out jesses, leash and rook, and Geoff breathed out in relief, Jon stood up, the gyr safely on his fist. He had a rook’s wing held in his fist, at which the tiercel was doubtfully plucking.  
“Where’s the rest of it?” asked Geoff, as Jon came back through the gate.  
“In the bag. He’d better have a bit of it to eat - he might realise it doesn’t taste very nice and not bother again.”  
“Why? Don’t they care for rook pie?”  
“Not much. If you want to train them for rook hawking, you have to switch the rook for a bit of pigeon so they never realise.” Jon took Firefly’s reins and mounted again. “Still, he’s been entered - after a fashion. I suppose he just blundered into the rooks after he’d lost the pigeon.”  
Relief at the sense of disaster averted made the first part of the ride back pleasurable. The sun, sinking lower in the sky, lent a warm, golden haze to the stubble fields. The cooling air, just fresh enough to dry the sweat from their skin, was still comfortably mild..  
All the same, it was a long way back. Geoff’s thoughts were running on hot baths, and whether the dinner would be a good one, and hoping that Fred the stable-lad would be around when they got back so that they could just hand the horses over and not have to deal with them themselves.  
“Tomorrow,” he told Jon. “I intend to take the boat out and go fishing. I’ve had more than enough of this flying lark.”  
“I expect you’re a bit saddle-sore, aren’t you?” asked Jon, with the cheerful heartlessness of one who’s not suffering himself.  
Geoff glowered. “If I can’t get up the stairs when we get home I shall be blaming you. Nobody warned me we’d be galloping half-way across the country.”  
Jon was in sickeningly good spirits with the gyr back on his fist. But as they rode, Geoff noticed him scanning the sky. Catching Geoff’s eye on him, he shrugged and said embarrassedly, “It’s stupid, I know. I thought I might see Arabella somewhere. Just in the distance, maybe. But I expect she’s settled down to roost somewhere by now.”  
Dusk was falling, and with it a crisp chill in the air. Geoff shivered and thought longingly of mugs of strong tea, and possibly a good brandy to follow.  
“Geoff.” Jon’s voice held a question.  
“Hmm?”  
“I was wondering…”  
“Yes?”  
“I thought you might talk to Father for me.”  
“About today?” Geoff was shocked.  
“No, of _cours_ e not. I can tell him all _that_. No, it’s just, I’ve decided I won’t want to go to Oxford or anything like that when I’ve finished at school.”  
“Was he expecting you to?”  
“No - maybe not - but I don’t want to go in the Navy either.”  
“Oh.”  
“I mean, I know there’s Trennels and I’ll have to look after it. One day.”  
“Yes,” agreed Geoff, more easily than he might have said it a few years previously. Trennels would be Jon’s whether he wanted it or not, and it was ultimately none of Geoff’s business.  
“But not yet. You see I want to fly. That’s what I’m going to do.”  
“Fly? You mean aeroplanes?”  
“Of course. I want to join the Royal Air Force.”  
“Seriously?”  
“Yes. That’s all I want to do.”  
“And what do you suppose your father will think about that?” It occurred to Geoff that at the age of twelve, Jon couldn’t be all that serious, but his voice had sounded urgent.  
“That’s the thing. I thought you could prepare the way a bit.”  
“What do you suppose I could do?”  
“Tell him that you don’t think the Navy would suit me. Tell him that I haven’t got the right sort of discipline or something.”  
“Well, that’s true enough,” said Geoff, and Jon laughed.  
“See! I’d be all wrong in the Navy. But I’ll be a _good_ pilot!”  
“How can you know that?”  
“I just do! Please, Geoff.”  
Geoff hesitated. “I’m not promising anything. If I get the chance to say a very casual word, maybe I will. But that won’t achieve much.”  
“Anything at all might help. Because I’m going to do it anyway. It’ll just be nicer if everyone agrees it’s a good idea …”  
The pace of both horses had imperceptibly quickened as house and stableyard came into view. Then as they rode into the yard he saw the lovely sight of young Fred coming to take his horse from him. Slowly and stiffly, he eased his leg over the saddle and dismounted, giving a rather theatrical groan to make a joke out of how sore he really was.  
“Did Master Jon take you a good gallop?” asked Fred, with an irreverent lack of sympathy, eying the dried sweat stains on the horse’s neck. ”I can see Lundy’s had a fair old blow.”  
“I think we all had a fair old blow,” replied Geoff, trying not to hobble too obviously, and deciding that Jon could perfectly well put Tarquin away by himself, he made his way towards the comforts of bath and dinner.

 ********

 He had a letter from Jon, tucked inside his Christmas package from Trennels, written in a neat, school-boyish copperplate, which only sprawled raggedly towards the end. ‘Tarquin died. Father found him in the mews one morning. Gyrs don’t like the dirty, wet weather in England. They’re used to it being clean and cold in the Arctic. Father’s had him stuffed, with his wings open as if he’s flying. He looks a bit stiff. At least I didn’t have to see Arabella like that. I still look out for her when I’m up on the Crowlands. I thought I’d seen her, but too far away to be sure. I expect she could see me though.. Maybe she’ll find a mate and breed next year.’  
There was a brief post script after his curly flourish of a signature. ‘PS I think Father’s going to be alright about me joining the RAF.’

It was during his next leave the following year that he’d met Pam, and he hadn’t thought about either horses or hawks for _years_ , until they came back to Trennels and his wife and children had started wanting their own . . . 

The old hawk-house roof had fallen in years before. It was rebuilt as a shed for the new tractor. Lawrence’s health was failing by then and Jon was hardly ever at home . . .

It was Pam, spending the dreary autumn after Jon’s death sorting through old correspondence, who had suggested that Jon knew the RAF were going to force him into retirement, and would soon stop him from doing even the unofficial flying he had been doing. And maybe that was partly why he’d taken up falconry again; to be able to watch his beloved hawks go where he no longer could.

********

“Dad?” A voice broke into his reverie, and he looked round with a start. His younger son stood on the steps below, looking up at him with an anxious expression. Geoff gave himself a brief mental shake, coming out of memories as out of sleep.  
The same blond hair, blue eyes, sun-tanned complexion, a conventionally good looking boy; very like Jon at a similar age. But uncertain, a shade of self-doubt behind the eyes. Jon had always had something of a devil-may-care cockiness about him.  
“You can go in,” said Peter. He had some sort of carpentry tool in his hands. Geoff realised he was still blocking the open door.  
“I was looking at Tarquin,” he explained. “There was a point when I’d have been glad to see the damned thing safely stuffed.”  
“You knew him? When Lawrence was flying him?”  
“Jon was flying him - or rather, he was flying himself and we were chasing madly after him.”  
“He must have been something to see - in flight, I mean, when he was alive.”  
“Yes. Yes, I suppose he was,” said Geoff, remembering again that mastery of the air, leaving the earth behind in steep climbs and turns, the height gained, the speed of the stoop, the dive that was never a fall.

“Did - did you want me for something?” asked Peter, after a moment in which he thought his father might say something more, but didn’t.  
“Yes,” said Geoff, recollecting himself. “The farm. I’ve been talking to Rowan. Just how serious are you about giving up the Navy?”  
Geoff saw his son visibly brace himself. “Would you like to sit down?” he asked, showing Geoff the battered arm chair by the fireplace.  
Then Peter, putting forward his plan in nervously rehearsed sentences, realised that the feared wrath wasn’t falling on him after all, and relaxing, started to explain exactly what he wanted to do with the land.

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes on falconry:  
> I hesitate to tell any AF reader how to pronounce anything, but the Springwatch team who should have known better got it spectacularly wrong last year, so gyrfalcon is pronounced 'jer-falcon'. The males in falconry are referred to as 'jerkins', and often shortened to simply the 'jer'. Gyrfalcons have traditionally been very difficult to keep; because they evolved in the Arctic where the extreme cold suppresses virus and bacteria, they have no natural immunity to the bugs that thrive in the mild, wet UK climate.  
> The use of 'bagged' quarry, as described in FL, and mentioned in this story, has long been illegal in the UK.


End file.
